California Cape Dory
Owners AssociationCape Dory built sturdy, salty sail and powerboats in New
England for over a quarter century, and many of their designs are
still in production at several locations. A number of these boats
have found their way to California, where the California Cape
Dory Owners Association was founded in 1994 to share stories,
Cape Dory information, and food and drink.

We sadly report that Noel Peattie, an early member of the California Cape Dory Owners Association and editor of
our newsletter from about 1998 to 2000, passed away on Jan. 13, 2005 in
Davis from complications following hip replacement surgery.

Noel was an avid sailor, sailing his
Typhoon Daysailer Fair American on San Francisco Bay until
shortly before his death. He published The
Typhooner, a free newsletter "for owners of Cape Dory Typhoon sailboats, and other Cape Dory sailboats, as well as for those who want to own one,
and those who once owned one, and now realize that selling the neat little
boats they had was the biggest mistake of their lives."

A retired librarian at the University
of California, Davis, and a published author and poet, Noel brought a
gracious and erudite style to the Northern California Cape Dory
community.

The CCDO is open to
anyone who owns or is interested in Cape Dory boats (but
is active primarily in California; see note below). Our purpose is to
swap information, admire each other's boats, and
periodically converge to share food and drink. Founded in
1994, the group consists of about 75 Cape Dory owners in
California and adjacent states (as of January 1999), and
about 100 elsewhere. Most of the boats are standard Cape
Dory sailboats, but the California fleet also includes 4
power boats, 3 motorsailers and 11 Typhoons.

We do two
kinds of things: local and global. Global stuff is of
interest to Cape Dory owners everywhere, like this Web
site, and parts of our newsletter. Local stuff is getting
together a couple of times a year around San Francisco
Bay. We have lots of members elsewhere in California, and
outside California for that matter, and would be
delighted to help if someone wanted to organize a
get-together in their neighborhood.

Standing rules: No bylaws, no Robert's Rules of Order.
Anyone wishing to lend a hand, let us know your duties
and job title, and you're appointed. We have a newsletter
of sorts, CCDO Notes,
published now and again. We only mail it to members in
California and adjacent states. If you have any Cape Dory
news, email it to our Commodore, Sandy
Smith.

Photos of members' boats, and pictures and stories from
our float-in get-togethers of past years.

Membership?

All Cape Dory owners are welcome as
members, and may purchase and use the
CCDO burgee and
hat.

To keep expense and hassle down, we'll
only mail the hard-copy newsletter to
members in California and adjacent
states. Since most of our
non-California members are from the
Internet, we'll post most of the
newsletter material on the Web site.

The main benefits of CCDO membership
are the sheer pride of belonging and the right to the burgee and hat. Everyone's
welcome on the Web site, member or not, and the
newsletter doesn't go out often. But membership
doesn't cost anything either. So if you own a Cape
Dory and want to be a member, email or snail
mail us with the following info. Feel free to leave out
any details you don't want to share.

Name, address, home/work/fax phones

Email address

Your Cape Dory's model, year, hull number, name,
and marina

Your yacht club, if you belong to one

Dues? Well, not really. We don't spend much money, and we
more or less cover our postage by selling our burgees.
And our founding Chairman, Mike Fahy, made up some of
these beautiful California Cape Dory Skipper hats. For
pictures and ordering info, see the Quartermaster's Shack.

About our wallpaper: The background images
on these pages show two Cape Dory boats, the 30' motorsailer and
the 30' flybridge powerboat. Neither is among the most common
Cape Dory boats, but as it turns out, the founding fleet of the
California Cape Dory Owners Association consisted of these two
boats and a 28' powerboat. Of the 70 or so Cape Dorys that have
joined us since then, ninety percent are normal Cape Dory
sailboats. We've finally updated the wallpaper on some of
the other pages on this site, so more models are
represented. Browse around.

Disclaimer: The CCDO is a private voluntary
social club. The CCDO and this Web site are not associated with
and do not represent Cape Dory Yachts, which is a division of
Newport Shipyards Corp., nor any of the other businesses or
individuals mentioned herein.